Rak-43.

3520
Fire simulation
1. lecture 13.1.2016
Simo Hostikka
Lecture contents

• Course contents and schedule

• Prerequisites
• Course delivery, materials
• Learning outcomes
• Introduction to fire simulation
• ”Hands on FDS”

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Course schedule
Date Topic
1 13.1.2016 Introduction, Simulation models, CFD, FDS
2 20.1.2016 Heat transfer
3 27.1.2016 Combustion
4 3.2.2016 Smoke extraction
FDS user interfaces, simulation exercise
5 10.2.2016 Pressure and HVAC
6 24.3.2016 Evacuation, FDS+Evac (Timo Korhonen / VTT)
7 2.3.2016 Pyrolysis, flame spread
8 9.3.2016 Fire suppression systems (Jukka Vaari / VTT)
9 16.3.2016 Verification and validation
10 23.3.2016 Fire risk analysis

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Lectures and exercises

Both lectures and exercises in R002/266 (computer class) at

Wednesdays btw 9-12.
- 1-2 h for lecture
- 1-2 h for starting the weekly exercise
- Teacher available for advice and help

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Prerequisites

Fire dynamics
Computer skills
- Text editing (ascii-editor)
- Data management
- Recommendation is Matlab. Ready-made Matlab –scripts will be
made available for plotting the simulation results.
- Excel etc..
- Computing skills

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Course delivery

• Weekly exercise
• Returned to MyCourse by Tuesday midnight.
• Solution feedback in the beginning of the lecture.
• Weight: 50 % of course grading.
• Individual project work:
• Weight: 50 %.
• Topic: Evacuation safety assessment in building fire.
• Return by 13.4.2016.

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Materials

FDS-SMV documentation
http://firemodels.github.io/fds-smv/
Books:
SFPE handbook of Fire Protection Engineering
Drysdale, D.: An Introduction to Fire Dynamics. 3. tai 4. painos.
Karlsson & Quintiere: Enclosure Fire Dynamics
Others
INSTA 950: Fire Safety Engineering — Comparative method to
verify fire safety design in buildings.

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Learning objectives

After the course, you will

- Understand the priciples of computer fire simulation.
- Know the fire risk analysis principles
- Can calculate fire-driven flows
- Can estimate the heat exposure from a fire to the surrounding
structures.
- Can specify the boundary conditions for fire scenarios.
- Use the simulation for dimensioning smoke exhaust, evacuation
arrangements, and fire suppression.

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Performance-based fire safety design

• Finnish fire-regulations: ”Oletettuun palonkehitykseen perustuva

suunnittelu”, design based on assumed fire development.
• Assume a design fire, and assess the consequences.
• Problem: ”Design fire” is a completely artificial concept.
• Alternatives for design fire
• HRR prediction (very hard)
• Consideration of all possible fires (laborous)
• Equally acceptable means of designing as the traditional,
prescribtive method.
• Can be performed as absolute (risk-based) or comparative.

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Modelling methods from the
viewpoint of risk
Deterministic methods
- Consequences of a design fire
- Fire development
- Human behaviour
- Response of structures and systems
Probabilistic methods
- Ignition frequency
- Chains of events
- Success of responding activities
- Variation of initial and boundary conditions

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Fire simulation models in the
increasing order of complexity
1. Fire plume models
2. Zone models
3. Network models
4. Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD (field models)

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Fire plume models

5 / 3 & 1/ 3
m(Q, z ) = 0.076 × z Q
&
Palopatsaan massavirta korkeuden funktiona
20
0.1 MW 1 MW

15

Korkeus (m)
5 MW

10

0
0 50 100 150 200
Massavirta (kg/s)
Heskestad 1986 (Drysdale)

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Zone models
• Smoke spreading in buildings
• Engineering tool of 1990’s Tu
• Strong assumptions
• Fast to run
• Programs: HOT
ZONE TL
• CFAST
• OZone Hi

COLD
ZONE

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Computational Fluid Dynamics

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Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS)

• Open source CFD-code for fire-driven flows.

• Main developer: National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST).
• Other developers: VTT Ltd., Jensen Hughes Ltd, Aalto,…
• Efficient flow solver combined with FSE consepts and physical
models.
• Two parts:
• FDS –solver
• Smokeview (SMV): post-processing.
• Input data using text files.

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FDS history

1978: Small Mach Number Combustion Equations (Rehm & Baum)

1990 ~ Kevin McGrattan started at NIST
1990’s: LES3D, Industrial fire simulator, ALOFT
2000 FDS1
2001 FDS2
2002 FDS3
2004 FDS4
2007 FDS5
2013 FDS6

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FDS applicability

Applies for Does not apply for

• Flows • Explosions (detonations)
• Smoke transport • Molecular level phenomena
• Gas transport
• Fire spreading*
• Sprays and cooling
• Suppression *

• Human behaviour

*) with possibly great uncertainty

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Fluid dynamics calculations

• Solving time dependent Navier-Stokes equations (their numerical

form).
• Consists of
• Physics
• Boundary conditions
• Initial conditions
• Spatial discretization
• Time discretization
• Post processing

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My first FDS-simulation
&HEAD CHID='mycase'/

&TIME T_END=10.0 /

1. Create a new folder under Z:\Documents. &MESH ID='MESH',

IJK=10,10,20,
2. Create a new text file with ending .fds XB = 0,1,0,1,0,2 /
(e.g. mycase.fds).
&REAC FUEL = 'N-HEPTANE'
3. Open the file and write the text lines: SOOT_YIELD = 0.02 /
4. Open the command prompt (shell). &SURF ID = 'Fire'
5. CD to the simulation directory and run the COLOR = 'RED'
HRRPUA = 2000. /
simulation as
&VENT SURF_ID='Fire'
> fds mycase.fds XB = .3,.7,.3,.7,0,0
6. Open the result files mycase.smv and IOR = 3 /

mycase_hrr.csv &TAIL /

Congratulations for the first (fire) simulation!

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Assignment 1: Turbulent flow over
backward -facing step
Flow over a backward –facing step is a classical problem of fluid
dynamics. The task is to predict the region of flow separation,
reattachment point and the resulting speed distribution.
The difficulty depends on the inflow speed.

U0

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 Assignment 1: Boundary conditions
L0 L1

U0 8H OPEN
z
H x

ReH = rU0H/m = 36000 Dx = H/10

Þ U0= 0.50 m/s H=1m
http://turbmodels.larc.nasa.gov/backstep_val.html L0= 10H, L1= 15H
Driver, D. M. and Seegmiller, H. L., "Features of 2-dimensional case
Reattaching Turbulent Shear Layer in Divergent (1 cell in y-direction)
Channel Flow," AIAA Journal, Vol. 23, No. 2, Feb 1985,
pp. 163-171.

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Assignment 1: Input

Input file should contain at least the following files:

• Heading (&HEAD)
• Time range (&TIME)
• Domain and mesh definition (&MESH)
• Inflow boundary condition (&SURF and &VENT)
• Outflow boundary condition (&VENT SURF_ID=’OPEN’ …)
• Define the ’step’ using a physical obstruction (&OBST)
• Measurements for ouputs (&DEVC, use POINTS-feature)
• End-of-file statement (&TAIL)
For more advanced options, see section ’8.2 Backward Facing Step’
of FDS Validation Guide.
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Assignment 1: Tasks
FDS simulation Report
1. Carry out the 2D simulation untill a 1. CSV file with columns:
steady state is reached. 1. Z-coordinate at x/H=-4
2. Find out what is sufficiently long 2. U(z) at x/H=-4
time for steady conditions. 3. Z-coordinate at x/H=1
3. Record the x-direction velocity 4. U(z) at x/H=1
component (U) distribution at 5. U(z) at x/H=4
positions 6. U(z) at x/H=6
x/H = -4
x/H = 1 2. Comparison against measured
x/H = 4 non-dimensional velocities U/U0
x/H = 6 (data and matlab-script in
MyCourses)
3. Picture of instantaneous field of U-
velocity (SLCF) at final time.
4. FDS input file (*.fds)

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